About this Glossary

Have you ever wondered what all the terms associated with Web services actually mean? Well this glossary contains a list of over 240 definitions and links to Web services ideas and standards - especially as they apply when using web services for and within a business.

If you want to find out more about Web services, then read the Business Web Services Scorecard paper from which this glossary is extracted. This paper explains what web services are and describes what's needed, what exists and what's missing when using Web services for business.

The author also keeps up-to-date on what's going on in the Web services world - especially as they apply to business - so if you want more up-to-date information, visit David Burdett's Weblog at www.davidburdett.com.

All the links were live at the time the Glossary was developed (August 2003). If you discover any that are broken, please let the author know so that they can be updated in a future version.

Name	Explanation
.NET	The .NET Framework is Microsoft's architecture for building applications on the Windows operating system including Web Services. It consists of a set of developer tools, servers and client software. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/default.asp. See also J2EE and ApplicationServer
ACORD	ACORD is an insurance industry association in the US that is developing XML standard documents s for electronic data sharing. See http://www.acord.org/
Address Route	An Address Route describes the set of web addresses through which a Web Service message (i.e. a SOAP Message) is sent from when it is first created until it is reaches its final destinations.
Address Routing	See Address Route
Agreement	An Agreement describes how two, sometimes more, businesses have agreed to carry out business with each other electronically. They are typically created by comparing one business' use of profiles and policies with the other business' use and selecting and agreeing a subset of technology that both support. They are identified with an Agreement Identifier. See also Collaboration Protocol Agreement.
Agreement Identifier	An Agreement Identifier is a unique identifier that identifies an agreement. Agreement Identifiers are often carried in the SOAP Headers of a SOAPMessage so that the agreement that applies to the processing of a message can be determined by the recipient of the message
AIAG	The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) is a US based not-for-profit association of companies involved in the automotive industry. They develop several eCommerce and B2Bi standards for use in their industry. See http://www.aiag.org/
ANSI	American National Standards Institute. One of the De Jure standard setting organizations. See http://www.ansi.org/
API Profile	An API Profile defines the subset of existing application program interfaces used for a specific purpose. For example it could be the profile used when connecting a PC to a portable device such as a PDA
API	An Application Program Interface (API) defines how a programmer writes a program to interface to some other program or operating system. For Web Services, standardized APIs are needed to define how an application communicates with Web Services Middleware. See Program APIs for more detail.
Application Program Interface	See API
Application Server	An Application Server is software that can be used to run a set of programs that provide business logic. It is distinct from front-end software, such as a web browser that displays information to a user, and a back end transaction or database server that provides the information manipulated by the programs running on the application server. See also .NET and J2EE
Architecture	Architectures define an overall structure. In the context of information systems, they define the various components of software and/or hardware from which the information system is built together with the interfaces between those components and descriptions of what each component does.
Attachment	Attachments are additional documents sent at the same and in the same message as a main business document. Attachments can be both XML and non-XML. To include an attachment, methods such as MIME, DIME or SOAP with Attachments have to be used to combine all the parts together into one message.
Authentication	Authentication is the process by which a recipient of a message, such as a SOAP Message, can determine the identity of the sender of the message with certainty. This often involves the sender of a message digitally signing the message using a digital certificate and the recipient of the message checking the digital signature for accuracy when the message is received.
Authorization	Authorization is the process of checking that a request implied by the receipt of a message, e.g. a SOAP Message is one that the sender of the message is allowed to make and therefore the request should be acted on by the service that receives it.
B2Bi	B2Bi or Business-to-Business Integration is the process of integrating the information systems of different businesses together. Often used in the context of integrating a buyers information systems with those of their suppliers. See also EAI.
Basic Profile	The WS-I Basic Profile is one of the activities of WS-I. It is a specification that provides precise rules on how the basic Web Services specifications of SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1 and UDDI 2.0 should be used together in order to maximize interoperability
BPEL, BPEL4WS	The Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) is a specification developed by IBM, BEA, Microsoft, Siebel and SAP. It is a definition language for business processes. It is being developed in the Web Services Business Process Execution Language Technical Committee in OASIS. See http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=wsbpel
BPSS	The Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS) is a specification that defines how two or more businesses exchange information in order to integrate their systems together (see B2Bi). The BPSS specification can be used to define a choreography.
Business Process	A business process is the sequence and conditions in which the processes within a business are executed to meet some useful purpose, for example handling a purchase order. Most business processes involve the execution of several sub-processes involving multiple systems both within, and often, outside the business. A business process can often be used to define the sequence of actions used to implement a service. Business Processes can be defined using business process execution languages such as BPEL4WS.
Business Process Execution Language for Web Services	See BPEL4WS
Business Process Execution Language	A Business Process Execution Language is a definition language used to define a business process. Examples of Business Process Languages include:BPEL4WS, and WSCI.
Business Process Specification Schema	See BPSS
Business Document	A Business Document is a name for the documents such as orders, invoices, shipment notices or any other document that is exchanged between businesses in order to carry out business
Business to Business Integration	See B2Bi
Business Transaction	A Business Transaction is an instance of two or more businesses carrying out business. For example a buyer placing an order with a seller.
Business Transaction Protocol	The Business Transaction Protocol of BTP is a protocol that allows the synchronization of data between remote servers using an XML based protocol using the ideas of two-phase commit. BTP is a Technical Committee within OASIS see http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=business-transaction
Callback Address	See return address
Canonical XML	Canonical XML is a standard developed within the W3C that defines a way of generating a physical representation of an XML document so that it is in a standard or canonical form. If two different documents, once generated in their canonical form are identical, then they are logically equivalent even if there were some differences in the original. Before XML documents are digitally signed or a digital signature is checked, they are always transformed into the canonical form. See http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n
Categorization	Categorization is mainly used for searching for definitions of such things such as businesses, services, choreographies, business document definitions etc. Categorization can be keyword based, for example the keyword "order" should identify business documents, business processes and choreographies that involve handling of an order. They can also be non-keyword based, for example find all the providers of logistics services within 50 miles of Paris, France.
Change Management	Change Management is the activity of managing changes to web services. It involves sending notifications of changes in a Web Service to the users of the Web Service so that those users can adapt their systems as required. See the section on Change Management for more detail.
Choreography	A choreography definition specifies the sequence and conditions in which messages are exchanged between two or more cooperating services to execute some useful purpose, for example between two businesses to place an order. Messages that take part in a choreography are identified with a Choreography Identifier and are defined using a Choreography Definition Language
Choreography Definition Language	A Choreography Definition Language is a definition language that can be used to define a choreography Typically it is defined using XML
Choreography Identifier	A Choreography Identifies is a unique identifier that identifies the sequence and conditions in which messages are exchanged. Choreography Identifiers are often carried in the SOAP Headers of a SOAPMessage so that the choreography that applies to the processing of a message is known
CLI	See Common Language Infrastructure
Collaboration Protocol Agreement	The Collaboration Protocol Agreement (CPA) is one of the specifications within ebXML. Its purpose is to define how two businesses will interact when taking part in B2B (see B2Bi). Separate agreements are required for each process being integrated. CPAs can be created from the intersection of two Collaboration Protocol Profiles (CPPs). See http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ebxml-cppa
Collaboration Protocol Profile	A Collaboration Protocol Profile (CPP) is one of the specifications within ebXML. It defines the technical capabilities of a business to do B2Bi. The intersection of two Collaboration Protocols Profiles can be used to create Collaboration Protocol Agreement (CPA). See http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ebxml-cppa
Common Language Infrastructure	The Common Language Infrastructure is a standard in which applications written in multiple high-level programming languages may be executed in different system environments without the need to rewrite the application to take into consideration the unique characteristics of those environments. The specification was originally developed by Microsoft and is used primarily in Microsoft products. It has been submitted and ratified by ECMA. See http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/ECMA-335.HTM
Complex Web Services	Complex Web Services are a set of techniques and technologies that allow a Web Service that uses a set of SOAP extensions and protocols to exchange messages between servers securely and reliably.
Composed Service	See Composite Application
Composite Application	A Composite Application is an application that is created by combining together several other existing applications together to create new functionality. The applications often run on different technologies so Web Services standards are an ideal way to enable the communication. If the Composite Application implements a service then that service is known as a Composed Service
Context	The circumstances or conditions in which something is used, for example how the content and structure of a business document varies depending on the country and industry (the context) in which the business document is created.
Conversation	A conversation is a set of related messages. For example the set of messages used by a buyer to place an order, the seller to provide a response, and the buyer to make multiple changes through sending change orders. Conversation instances are identified with a Conversation Identifier
Conversation Identifier	A Conversation Identifier is a unique identifier for an instance of a choreography. For example, the exchange of messages required to complete the placement of an order could have a choreography identifier associated with them. Choreography identifiers are transported in SOAP Headers of a SOAP Message so that the conversation being executed can be identified.
CPA	See Collaboration Protocol Agreement
CPP	See Collaboration Protocol Profile
De Facto Standard	A De Facto standard is a standard that has achieved widespread use without being submitted to any formal standardization procedure through a standards organization. Examples include the PC and the Microsoft Windows Operating system. See also De Jure standard
Definition Language	A Definition Language is a language, often defined using XML, that can be used to describe the precise characteristics and structure of objects that are of interest to web services. For example definition languages can be created to describe such things as services, business documents, business processes, choreographies, messages, roles, policies, agreements, profiles, business partners, users, systems, web services, standards and more.
Definition Language Profile	A Definition Language Profile is the subset of a definition language that is designed for some particular purpose. For example, XML Schema is a powerful language that contains more features than necessary to define a business document. Therefore profiles of XML Schema have been created that define a useful subset of XML Schema that is targeted on the definition of business documents
De Jure Standard	A De Jure standard is one that has been sanctioned and approved by a formal standards setting authority. Strictly speaking for computer standards this must be one of: ANSI (American National Standards Institute), ITU (International Telecommunication Union), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers), ISO (International Standards Organization), or VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association). In practice for Web Services, OASIS and the W3C are the main standards setting authorities.
Delivery Receipt	A Delivery Receipt is a message, usually a SOAP Message that is returned by a recipient of an earlier message to indicate to the sender of the earlier message that the message was received.
Digital Signature	A Digital Signature is a way of signing an electronic document in a similar way to a pen can be used by a person to sign a paper document. This means that a digital signature can be used to determine the authenticity of a business document or message. Digital signatures can also be used to ensure that any alterations to a business document can always be detected. See also XML Signature. Digital signatures are created and checked using a Digital Certificate.
Digital Certificate	A Digital Certificate is a set of codes that are used to create and verify a digital signature and/or encrypt a message or XML document. Digital Certificates can be thought of as "keys" that can be used to lock or unlock a document. See also key management.
DIME	Direct Internet Message Encapsulation (DIME) was a specification for combining multiple documents into a single SOAP Message. It was originally developed by IBM and Microsoft and was submitted to the IETF as an Internet Draft. The DIME specification however has not been progressed and the Internet Draft published at the IETF has been allowed to lapse see http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-nielsen-dime-03.txt. The original specification is available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/draft-nielsen-dime-02.txt. See also SOAP with Attachments.
Direct Internet Message Encapsulation	See DIME
Discovery	Discovery is the process of discovering information about a Web Service so that the information can be used to build solutions that use that web service. UDDI and the ebXML Registry are the main standards that are used to support discovery.
Distributed Management Task Force	The Distributed Management Task Force is an industry organization that is developing interoperable standards for managing distributed software and hardware. See http://www.dmtf.org/
DMTF	See Distributed Management Task Force
Document	In a web services context, a document is the data that is placed in the content or payload of a SOAP Message. A document can be placed either in the SOAP Body or in an attachment. Documents are often business documents
Document Definitions	A Document Definition, is a definition of a document in a definition language. Document definitions are usually written using XML or XML Schema.
Document Object Model	See DOM
DOM	The Document Object Model (DOM) is an interface that allows programs to dynamically access and update the content of documents, especially XML documents. See http://www.w3.org/DOM/
DotNET	DotNET is an alternative spelling for .NET
EAI	Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is a set of technologies used to integrate the systems and solutions within a business. Web Services technologies are often used for the exchange of messages between the systems involved. See also B2Bi
ebXML	ebXML was a joint 18 month initiative between OASIS and UN/CEFACT that started in November 1999. Its objective was to enable eCommerce globally through the development of a set of standards. When it finished, on going development of the technical ebXML specifications moved to in OASIS and the business-focused specifications moved to UN/CEFACT. See http://www.ebxml.org/
ebXML Messaging	ebXML Messaging is one of the standards within ebXML. Its purpose is to provide a set of standards to support Complex Web Services. See http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ebxml-msg
ebXML Registry	ebXML Registry is one of the standards within ebXML. Its purpose is to define a standard way of manipulating information with Registries. See http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=regrep See also UDDI.
EDI	Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a set of standards that describe the business documents and choreographies required to carry out eCommerce. There are two main flavors of EDI: ANSI X12, see http://www.x12.org/, who have developed EDI standards for the USA, and , UN/CEFACT, see http://www.unece.org/cefact/, who have developed the international version of EDI. EDI technologies are gradually being replaced by technologies based on Web Services and XML
Electronic Data Interchange	See EDI
Encryption	Encryption is a method by which data can scrambled so that it cannot be understood by anyone unless they have the key to unscramble it. XML or other data can be encrypted using the XML Encryption standard.
Enterprise Application Integration	See EAI
Event Logging	An Event Log records information about things that happen in Web Services Middleware, for example, messages sent and retrieved, problems and errors found, business processes started or stopped. They can be analyzed after the event to help identify the cause of problems and monitor the performance and behavior of the Web Services Middleware and the Web Services that run on them.
Federated Registry	A Federated Registry one that allows multiple registries to appear as if they are one large registry. This works by one registry automatically searching additional registries when necessary. See also Replicated Registry
HTML	HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the definition language used to display web pages on a web browser. See http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/
HTTP	HyperText Transport Protocol. The transport protocol originally designed for sending web pages over the internet. It is also the main protocol used for transporting SOAP messages. HTTP is built on top of TCP/IP. See http://www.w3.org/Protocols/
ICE	The Information and Content Exchange Protocol is a protocol that describes how to subscribe to syndicated news feeds. See http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-ice
IEEE	Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is one of the De Jure standards setting organizations. See http://www.ieee.org/
IETF	The Internet Engineering Task Forces is the standards setting authority for Internet protocols such as TCP/IP. More recently the standards related to web services have usually been developed within either OASIS or the W3C. In the IETF, initial versions of standards are published as Internet Drafts which, once approved, become Request For Comments or RFCs. See http://www.ietf.org
Implementation Policy	An implementation policy describes the rules that a particular implementation of web services will use when generating or processing a SOAP Message, for example how to digitally sign a message or the protocol to use send a message reliably.
Information Content and Exchange	See ICE
Intellectual Property	Intellectual property is associated with unique and novel ideas over which a business claims rights. Patents and copyrights are used to establish those rights. Once a business has established those rights, they can then require other businesses to get a license from them before using those ideas. Granting of a license can often involve the payment of fees.Patents and copyright have been established around many of the software ideas associated with Web Services.
Internet Engineering Task Force	See IETF
Internet Draft	An Internet Draft is the description given to initial, unapproved versions of standards published in the IETF.
IP	See intellectual property
ISO	The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is one of the De Jure standards setting organizations. See http://www.iso.ch/
ITU	The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is one of the De Jure standards setting organizations. See http://www.itu.int/
J2EE	Java 2 Enterprise Edition is a framework, architecture and a set of associated APIs for a software platform built on top of Java for large scale computing. Originally developed by Sun Microsystems, J2EE compliant solutions are available from several vendors. See http://java.sun.com/J2EE/. See also application server and .NET
Java	Java is an object oriented programming language for developing applications. See http://java.sun.com/
Java Beans	Java Beans is an approach where an XML Schema for a document is processed to generate software known as a Java Bean. The Java Bean can be used to either read or set the data in an instance of the XML document using normal Java APIs. This means that programmers can read and create XML documents without needing to know any of the intricacies of handling XML.
Java Community Process	The Java Community Process is an open organization of Java developers and licensees who develop and revise Java technology specifications, reference implementations, and technology compatibility kits. Originally created by Sun Microsystems. See http://www.jcp.org/en/home/index
JAXB	The Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) provides an API and tools that automate the mapping between XML and Java. Developed under the Java Community Process. http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxb/
JAXM	The Java API for XML Messaging (JAXM) provides an API that enables applications to send and receive document oriented XML messages using SOAP with Attachments. Developed under the Java Community Process. See http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxm/
JAXP	The Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) provides an API that supports the processing of XML documents using DOM, SAX and XSLT. Developed under the Java Community Process. http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/
JAXR	The Java API for XML Registries (JAXR) is an API that provides for accessing different types of XML Registries. Developed under the Java Community Process. See http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxr/
JCP	See Java Community Process
JMX	The Java Management Extensions (JMX) is an open technology for management and monitoring systems and software running in a Java environment. See http://java.sun.com/products/JavaManagement/
JWSDL	The Java API for WSDL is an API that provides a way of representing and manipulating WSDL documents in Java. Developed under the Java Community Process. See http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=110
Key Management	Key Management is the management of the processes required for creating, updating, distributing and deprecating the keys or digital certificates required to generate digital signatures or to encrypt documents. The XML Key Management Working Group in the W3C is addressing the distribution part of Key Management with the XKMS specification. See http://www.w3.org/2001/XKMS/
Liberty Alliance	The Liberty Alliance is standards group that is developing a set of specifications for federated identity services. It allows users to link identity information between accounts without centrally storing personal information. See http://www.projectliberty.org/
Logical Address	A logical address is an identifier or an address for a Web Service that identifies who is running the service and what it does rather than where it is located on the Web. For example urn:www-dnb-com/dunsno/123456789012345/salesorder could identify the sales order service operated by the company with the DUNS no 123456789012345. Logical addresses usually need to be mapped to a physical address before a SOAP Message can be sent. Logical addresses usually remain the same even when the physical address has changed.
Message	A Message consists of an envelope and its contents. For Web Services it is a SOAP Envelope with a business document contained in the SOAP Body. Messages are created by one service and then sent to another service that processes them. A Message can also contain additional documents as an attachment.
Message Correlation	Message Correlation is the idea of relating one message that is sent with its reply. Typically, the first message contains a Message Identifier in a SOAP Header that is then included in the SOAP Header of any reply
Message Encryption	Message Encryption is the process of scrambling a message so that its contents are not decipherable by anyone who does not have access to the digital certificate required to unscramble the message. See also encryption.
Message Envelope	A Message Envelope is a way of electronically grouping together the different message parts within a message. For Web Services, a Message Envelope is always a SOAP Envelope
Message Expiry	Message Expiry is information typically stored in the SOAP Header of a message that indicates to the recipient of the message the time after which the message should no longer be processed
Message Identifier	A Message Identifier is a unique identifier for a message that allows the message to be referenced and retrieved. They are often Globally Unique Identifiers or GUIDs which means that no two identifiers are ever the same. Message Identifiers are stored in the SOAP Header of a message. See also Message Correlation.
Message Manifest	A Message Manifest is a table of contents that identifies and locates each of the message parts in a SOAP message.
Message Part	A Message Part contains a discrete separate part of a message. Message Parts can be located in the SOAP Body or in an attachment
Message Privacy	Message Privacy is the idea of protecting the contents of a message from viewing by people or software that are not authorized to see it. Encryption techniques are usually used to do this. See also Message Encryption and SSL.
Message Routing	Message Routing is the process of specifying the servers through which a message passes when it is sent from the original creator of the message to its final destination.
Message Security	Message Security involves one or more of: making sure that a message has not been tampered through the use of a digital signature, is kept private using Message Privacy, is authentic and authorized. See also Message Privacy and Message Encryption.
Message Sequencing	Message Sequencing is the idea of making sure that messages are processed in the same sequence at the destination as the sequence in which they were sent even if some of the messages were delayed so that some messages arrive after messages that were sent later
MIME	Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is the widely used standard, originally and still used for email (SMTP) that is used to group together multiple documents into one message. See also DIME and SOAP with Attachments.
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions	See MIME.
NAICS	NAICS is the North American Industry Classification System. It is a way by which a business can classify the types of services that they provide. It is used by UDDI. See http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/naics.html
Negotiation Protocol	A Negotiation Protocol is an automated protocol that determines how two (or more) services will interoperate by agreeing the Web Services protocols and standards they are each going to use. A Negotiation Protocol should take profiles and policies as input and generate an agreement as the output.
Non Repudiation	Non Repudiation is the ability, after the event of being able to prove that something occurred. For example, by digitally signing a business document or message using a digital certificate, you can later examine the business document or message and determine who created it.
OAGI	The Open Applications Group (OAGI) is a non-profit consortium focusing on best practices and processes based on XML content for B2Bi and EAI. See http://www.openapplications.org/
OASIS	Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. A not-for-profit, global consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards. Together with the W3C, it is the home for the development of many of the standards used by Web Services. See http://www.oasis-open.org/
Operational Management	Operational Management is the activity of managing the operation or running of a set of Web Services and the servers on which they run. See the section on Operational Management for more detail
PASWA	See Proposed Infoset Addendum to SOAP Messages with Attachments
Physical Address	A Physical Address is the location of a service on the Web. It is typically defined as a URL. See also Logical Address
PIDX	The Petroleum Industry Data exchange (PIDX) is a committee of the American Petroleum Institute. It's objective is to "achieve petroleum industry and enterprise-wide integration of business processes through seamless electronic business communication". It has developed several XML business document standards.
Policies	Policies describe the rules that are used to determine what an implementation using Web Services does in a specific set of circumstances. For example it could contains rules on whether or not a SOAP Message should be digitally signed and if so, which digital certificate to use.
Policy Definition	A Policy Definition is a description of a policy typically in some machine or computer readable form.
Port	A port is a location or interface on the web to which SOAP messages can be sent. See also WSDL.
Proposed Infoset Addendum to SOAP Messages with Attachments	The Proposed Infoset Addendum to SOAP Messages with Attachments or PASWA is a specification developed by AT&T, BEA, Canon, Microsoft, SAP and Tibco. It provides an approach for "integrating XML with pre-existing [non XML] data formats". It is backwards compatible with Soap With Attachments (version 1.0). See http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/mgudgin/paswa/paswa.html
Privacy	Privacy is the process of making sure that only those that are allowed can see a message or its contents. The techniques used involve encryption. See also XML Encryption and SSL.
Profile	A Profile describes how standards are used in combination or in a particular context. For example: how the base web services standards of SOAP, WSDL and UDDI are used together; how they are used with other standards to make them secure and reliable; or, how they are used with specific business documents in a vertical industry. Defining profiles makes interoperability easier to realize since it limits choice. See also Profile Definitions and Basic Profile
Profile Context	A Profile context describes the set of conditions in which a specific profile is designed to be used
Protocol	In a web services context, a protocol describes how to implement some specific functionality in terms of the behavior of the sender and receiver of a message as well as the format and content of the message itself. For example a reliable messaging protocol would describe how to send a message from a sender to a receiver with a high probability that the message would be successfully delivered
RAND	Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms are licensing terms applied to the use of intellectual property for example in a Web Services specification, that are both "reasonable", i.e. no one should find them too onerous and "non discriminatory", i.e. the same terms apply to everyone. Note that the license terms may involve the payment of license fees. See also Royalty Free
Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory Terms	See RAND
Registry	A Registry stores rules and other information that can be used when: a) designing web services and applications; and b) when those services or applications are running. Information that they store can include definitions of: services, business documents, choreographies, messages, roles, policies, agreements, profiles, business partners, users, systems, web services, standards and more. Registries can be queried to search and retrieve the information they contain. See also Registry Federation and Registry Replication.
Registry Federation	A registry that is Federated is a set of registries that behave as if they are one. This means that a query on one of the registries in the set will be resent to other registries in the federation when necessary in order to complete the query. Registry Federation is an alternative to Registry Replication
Registry Replication	Registry Replication is the process of periodically or, on demand, copying information from one registry to another so that there is usually a registry available that can be used to satisfy any query. Registry replication is an alternative to Registry Federation. See also UDDI.
Reliable Messaging	Reliable Messaging is a protocol that allows a message to be delivered to its destination with a high probability that the message will be delivered. Reliable messaging works by requesting an acknowledgement message be sent in return to a message that was sent. If no acknowledgement is received after a period of time, the original message is resent until the acknowledgement arrives or the original sender gives up. Reliable Messaging is major component of Complex Web Services
Replicated Registry	A Replicated Registry is a registry where the information in the registry is automatically copied to other registries. See also Federated Registry
Request for Comment	See RFC.
Return Address	A Return Address is information stored in a SOAP Header that indicates to the recipient of the message where a reply to the message should be sent. It is also sometimes know as a callback address.
Return On Investment	A Return on Investment or ROI, is the process of measuring the benefit realized from making an investment. Both the benefit and investment can be measured in several different ways including money, time and quality. A positive ROI is often a prerequisite for many purchasing decisions.
RFC	A Request For Comment (RFC) is the final, approved form of standards specifications published by the IETF. See also Internet Draft
ROI	See Return on Investment
Role	Roles are involved in business processes and describe the types of behavior that a business can take in that process. Examples of roles include buyer, seller, payer, financial institution, etc.
RosettaNet	RosettaNet is an organization that focuses on defining messaging, business document and choreography standards for the High tech Industry. See http://www.rosettanet.org/
Royalty Free	Royalty Free terms are licensing terms applied to the use of intellectual property for example for a Web Services specification. They key point in Royalty Free terms is that no license fees are involved. Note that Royalty Free does not preclude the use of other licensing terms. See also RAND
SAX	The Simple API for XML (SAX) is a common interface implemented by many XML Parsers for processing XML documents. The SAX interface starts at the beginning of an XML document and then serially processes all the XML elements until the end is reached. See http://www.saxproject.org/
Secure Sockets Layer	See SSL
Security Roadmap (IBM and Microsoft)	A roadmap for "Security in a Web Services World: A Proposed Architecture and Roadmap" See http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-secmap/
Security Token	A Security Token is additional information attached to a message that increases the security of a message through encryption or the use of a digital signature.
Semantics	Semantics are the explanation of the meaning of things. For example the explanation of the meaning of a shipping date on an order. Semantics are key to realizing interoperability since, unless meanings are shared, data held in, for example, business documents will be miss-understood and therefore processed incorrectly.
Semantic Definitions	Semantic Definitions are documents that describe semantics.
Service	A Service is a process operated by a business that accepts requests and generates an appropriate response. For example a quotation service could accept a request for a quotation and respond with a quote. A Web Service is a service that accepts requests and generates responses using Web Service standards such as SOAP.
Service Level	A Service Level is a measure of the performance of a service. They can be both technical, for example provide a response to a SOAP query within 1 second, as well as business focused, for example fewer than 0.1% errors by a data entry function. Note that all services levels must be measurable. See also Service Level Agreement and Service Level Management.
Service Level Agreement	A Service Level Agreement is an agreement where one party agrees that they will perform a service for another party within an agreed set of service levels. Service Level Agreements can also specify the action to be taken if target service levels are not met.
Service Level Management	Service Level Management is the process first setting service levels then recording them in a Service Level Agreement (SLA) and finally, once in place, the service levels are monitored and, if any problems occur, appropriate action take to solve the problem.
SLA	See Service Level Agreement
SMTOM	See SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism
SMTP	Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) is a widely used protocol for sending e-mail messages. All e-mail systems that use the Internet use SMTP for sending messages between one email server and another. SMTP is built on top of TCP/IP. See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1123.txt
SOAP Body	The SOAP Body is the second part of the SOAP Envelope. It contains the payload of the message typically in the form of a business document
SOAP Envelope	The SOAP Envelope is the outermost part of a SOAP Message. It contains a SOAP Header and a SOAP Body
SOAP Header	The SOAP Header is the first part of the SOAP envelope and contains additional information about the message such as Address Routing, Choreography Identifiers, Conversation Identifiers, Digital Signatures, Message Correlation, Message Expiry, Message Identifiers and Message Manifests.
SOAP Message	A SOAP Message is a SOAP Envelope wrapped in a transport protocol such as HTTP or SMTP.
SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism	The SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (SMTOM) provides "a concrete implementation of it for optimizing the transmission and/or wire format of SOAP messages". This provides a mechanism for transporting multiple different parts of a message while still allowing the message to appear as XML to the application that is processing it. It is based on the ideas of PASWA See http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-mtom/
SOAP with Attachments	SOAP with Attachments is a specification that describes how to carry a SOAP Envelope with attachments using MIME. See http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP-attachments
SOAP	The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is a protocol that describes how two servers can interact with each other by exchanging information in SOAP messages. A SOAP Message consists of SOAP Envelope with a SOAP Header and a SOAP Body. The original version of SOAP is version 1.1, this being replaced by version 1.2.
SOAP 1.1	The original version of SOAP. See http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/
SOAP 1.2	The replacement for SOAP version 1.1. SOAP Version 1.2 is being developed in the W3C see http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part1/.
Software Stub	A Software Stub is automatically generated software, often generated from WSDL that allows ordinary APIs to be used to process SOAP Messages without the programmer needing to understand the detail of how SOAP works.
SSL	Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol for sending or transmitting private messages via the Internet. It works by encrypting any data that is sent over a connection. By convention, URLs that start with "https:" instead of "http:" are using SSL. See also XML Encryption.
Standard Representation	A Standard Representation is generally agreed and accepted way of defining how something appears. For example there can be a standard way of describing the structure of an XML order business document.
Taxonomy	Taxonomy is the orderly classification of a set of related things where those things are given a code that identifies their position within the taxonomy. Those codes can then be used to identify and locate similar or related things. Examples of taxonomies are NAICS and UNSPSC.
TCP/IP	The Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is a communications protocol developed by the US Department of Defense to enable the networking of disparate systems. It is the standard protocol of the Internet.
Transformation Definitions	A Transformation Definition, sometimes called a Transformation Map is a description of how to covert a document or message from one format to another, for example how to convert an XML Order document into its EDI equivalent.
Transformation Map	See Transformation Definition
Transport Binding	A Transporting binding describes how the messages of a protocol such as SOAP, are carried within a Transport Protocol.
Transport Protocol	A Transport Protocol is a protocol that specifies at a low level how data is transferred between servers. SMTP and HTTP are the most popular transport protocols.
Transport Security	Transport Security is a method of encrypting a message as it is sent between servers. See SSL
Two Phase Commit	Two Phase Commit is a process by which two processes running at separate locations can synchronize what they do so that, at both ends, everything works or nothing works. It is based on the ideas of two-phase commit used with distributed databases to make sure that multiple copies of a database are always identical
UBL	The Universal Business Language (UBL) initiative is a Technical Committee within OASIS that is developing standard representations for business documents used in B2Bi. See http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ubl
UCC	The Universal Code Council (UCC) is non-profit organization promoting multi-industry standards for product identification and related electronic communication. See http://www.uc-council.org/
UDDI	Universal Description, Discovery and Implementation (UDDI) is a standard for storing, searching and managing information in registries. It is a technical committee within OASIS. See http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=uddi-spec
UDDI 2.0	UDDI 2.0 is the version of UDDI that is used to create the Basic Profile within WS-I.
UN/CEFACT	The United Nations Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) is the department of the United Nations historically responsible for defining and maintaining the international version of EDI. More recently it has sponsored several standards activities related to the definition of business documents and business processes including ebXML. See http://www.unece.org/cefact/
Universal Business Language	See UBL
Universal Code Council	See UCC
Universal Discovery Description and Integration	See UDDI
Universal Resource Locator	See URL
UNSPSC	The United Nations Standard Products and Services Code (UNSPSC) is a classification convention that is used to numerically identify products and services. See http://www.unspsc.org/
URL	A Universal Resource Location (URL) is standard used to specify an address of a resource on the web. The resources include: web pages, which usually start with the text "http:" and people, for example email addresses.
VESA	Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) is one of the De Jure standards setting organizations. See http://www.vesa.org/
W3C	The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the original standards setting authority that developed many of the original standards for the web such as HTML and HTTP. Together with the OASIS, it is the home for the development of many of the standards used by Web Services. See http://www.w3.org
Web Server	A Web Server is a computer running software that can generate web pages for display in a browser. A Web Server uses the HTTP and HTML standards.
Web Services Choreography Interface	See WSCI.
Web Services Description Language	See WSDL
Web Services Distributed Management	A technical committee within OASIS that is developing standards to support the remote management and monitoring of Web Services. See: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=wsdm
Web Services Interoperability Organization	See WS-I
Web Services Management	Web Services Management is the process of managing a set of web services no matter what technology the web service is running on. It includes change management, operational management, service level management as well as auditing of web service performance and problem resolution. See Web Services Management for more details.
Web Services Management Framework	A set of specifications that address the operational management aspects of Web Services Management. The specifications are published by: Hewlett Packard with support from: Ascential Software, BEA Systems, Informatica, IONA, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO Software, and webMethods. See http://devresource.hp.com/drc/specifications/wsmf/WSMF-Overview.jsp. The other specifications in the set are: WS Events; WSMF Foundation and WS Management.
Web Services Middleware	Web Services Middleware is software that supports Web Services standards, protocols and principles providing a convenient set of APIs that an application programmer can use to develop Web Services.
Web Services Transaction Management	The Web Services Transaction Management (WS-TXM) specification developed by Arjuna, Fujitsu, IONA, Oracle and Sun provides a mechanism for handling the problems that can occur when multiple different business transactions need to cooperate and one of them fails causing the other business transactions to take some compensatory action. See http://www.arjuna.com/library/specs/ws_caf_1-0/WS-TXM.pdf
World Wide Web Consortium	See W3C
WS Acknowledgement	WS Acknowledgement is a specification published by BEA that "allows a sender of a message to request that an acknowledgement is sent in a response". See http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/webservices/WS-Acknowledgement-0_9.jsp
WS Addressing	WS Addressing is a specification published by IBM, BEA and Microsoft that "provides transport-neutral mechanisms to address Web services and messages". See http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/ws-addressing.asp
WS Architecture	WS Architecture is an activity within the W3C that is "identifying the technologies necessary for Web services to be used, described, discovered and how Web services interact with each other". See http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/arch/
WS Authorization	WS Authorization is a specification that IBM and Microsoft plan to develop that will "describe how to manage authorization data and authorization policies". See IBM and Microsoft's Security Roadmap.
WS Callback	WS Callback is a specification published by BEA in February 2003 that is "used to dynamically specify where to send asynchronous responses to a SOAP request". See http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/webservices/WS-CallBack-0_9.jsp
WS Choreography	WS Choreography is an activity with the W3C. Its purpose is to "create the definition of a choreography language(s) for describing a choreography, as well as the rules for composition of, and interaction among, such choreographed Web services". See http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/chor/
WS Context	The WS-Context specification published by Sun, Oracle, Iona, Arjuna, and Fujitsu provides a mechanism for sharing context information between a set of web services that are taking part in some common process. See http://www.arjuna.com/library/specs/ws_caf_1-0/WS-CTX.pdf
WS Coordination	The WS Coordination is a specification developed by IBM, Microsoft and BEA. It "describes an extensible framework for providing protocols that coordinate the actions of distributed applications". See http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-coor/
WS Distributed Management	The Web Services Distributed Management technical committee is an activity within OASIS that is defining "web services management, including using web services architecture and technology to manage distributed resources. The TC will also develop the model of a web service as a manageable resource". See http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=wsdm
WS Events	The Web Services Events specification published by Hewlett Packard provides a set of XML documents that and associated processing rules that can be used for advertising, subscribing, producing and consuming Web Services. It is part of the Web Services Management Framework. See http://devresource.hp.com/drc/specifications/wsmf/WS-Events.pdf
WS Federation	WS Federation is a specification developed by IBM, Microsoft, Verisign, BEA and RSA that "describes how to manage and broker the trust relationships in a heterogeneous federated environment including support for federated identities". See ftp://www6.software.ibm.com/software/developer/library/ws-fed.pdf
WS-I	The Web Services Interoperability Organization is an "open, industry organization chartered to promote Web services interoperability across platforms, operating systems, and programming languages". See http://www.ws-i.org/
WS Management	The Web Services Management Specification published by Hewlett Packard describes how the other specifications in the Web Services Management Framework can be used to manage web services. See http://devresource.hp.com/drc/specifications/wsmf/WSMF-WSM.pdf
WS MessageData	WS Message Data is specification published by BEA. It provides metadata definitions for Message Identity. See http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/webservices/WS-MessageData-0_9.jsp
WSMF Foundation	The Web Services Management Foundation specification published by HP uses Web Services to provide management interfaces to manageable resources. It is part of the Web Services Management Framework. See http://devresource.hp.com/drc/specifications/wsmf/WSMF-Foundation.pdf
WS Policy	WS Policy is a specification developed by IBM, Microsoft, BEA and SAP that provides "a general-purpose model and corresponding syntax to describe and communicate the policies of a Web service". See http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/ws-policy.asp
WS PolicyAssertions	The Web Services Policy Assertions Language is a specification published by IBM, Microsoft and SAP. The specification "defines general messaging-related assertions for use with WS-Policy". See http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/ws-policyassertions.asp
WS PolicyAttachments	The Web Services Policy Attachment is a specification published by IBM, Microsoft, BEA and SAP. It " specifies three specific attachment mechanisms for using policy expressions with existing XML Web service technologies". See http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-polatt/
WS Reliability	WS Reliability is a specification published by Sonic, Sun, NEC, Fujitsu, Oracle and Hitachi that defines a protocol "for exchanging SOAP messages with guaranteed delivery, no duplicate s, and guaranteed message ordering"". See http://sunonedev.sun.com/platform/technologies/ws-reliability.v1.0.pdf
WS ReliableMessaging	The WS Reliable Messaging Protocol is a specification published by BEA, Microsoft, Tibco and IBM. It "describes a protocol that allows messages to be delivered reliably between distributed applications in the presence of software component, system, or network failures". See http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/ws-reliablemessaging.asp
WS Routing	WS Routing is a specification published by Microsoft that "defines mechanisms for routing SOAP messages". See http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/wsroutspecindex.asp
WS SOAP Manifest	The WS SOAP Manifest is a specification published by Commerce One. It defines ""a table of contents for a SOAP message that describes, locates and records, in a transport-binding independent way, additional meta-information about the various Message Parts within a SOAP message". See http://www.commerceone.com/developers/docs/ws-soapmanifestv1_0.pdf
WS SecureConversation	The WS Secure Conversation Language is a specification developed by IBM, Microsoft, Verisign and RSA Security that "defines extensions that build on WS Security to provide secure communication. Specifically, it defines mechanisms for establishing and sharing security contexts, and deriving session keys from security contexts". See http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/ws-secureconversation.asp
WS Security	The WS Security specification developed by IBM, Microsoft and RSA describes "enhancements to SOAP messaging to provide quality of protection through message integrity, message confidentiality, and single message authentication". See http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-secure/
WS Transaction	The WS Transaction is a specification developed by IBM, BEA and Microsoft was published. It "describes coordination types that are used with the extensible coordination framework described in the WS-Coordination specification". See http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-transpec/
WS Trust	The WS Trust Language is a specification developed by IBM, Microsoft, Verisign and RSA Security that "defines extensions that build on WS Security to request and issue security tokens and to manage trust relationships". See http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/ws-trust.asp
WSCI	Web Services Choreography Interface is a specification published by Intalio, Sun, SAP and BEA in August 2002. It is "an XML-based interface description language that describes the flow of messages exchanged by a Web Service participating in choreographed interactions with other services". It is one of the inputs into the WS Choreography activitiy. See http://www.w3.org/TR/wsci/
WSDL	The Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is a specification developed by IBM and Microsoft that defines "an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information". Version 1.2 of WSDL is being developed in the W3C. See http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/desc/
WSDL 1.1	The first version of the WSDL Specification. See http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl
WSDM	See Web Services Distributed Management technical committee.
xCBL	The XML Common Business Library (xCBL) is "a set of XML building blocks and a document framework that allows the creation of robust, reusable, XML documents to facilitate global trading". See http://www.xcbl.org/
XKMS	See key management
XML	The Extensible Mark up Language (XML) is a "simple, very flexible text format derived from SGML" developed within the W3C. It is the foundational definition language for all Web Services. See http://www.w3.org/XML/
XML Common Business Library	See xCBL
XML Encryption	XML Encryption is an activity within the W3C that has developed a specification for "a process for encrypting data and representing the result in XML". See http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlenc-core/
XML Parser	An XML Parser is software that processes an XML document and makes the XML content available to an application through an API. Most parsers support the DOM and SAX APIs
	XML Schema is the definition language developed in the W3C that is universally used to define the structure of XML documents. See http://www.w3.org/XML/Schema
XML Signature	XML Signature is the activity within the W3C that specified a way of digitally signing a document using XML. See http://www.w3.org/Signature/
XSLT	XSLT is the activity within the W3C that specified a way of transforming XML into other formats such as HTML. See http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt

About the Author

David Burdett is Director of Standards Strategy, Web Services for Commerce One. He is responsible for directing Commerce One's use of Web Services standards in its products and solutions. Recently he has played leading roles in Web Services and eCommerce standards including: Web Services Architecture, ebXML, UBL and the Internet Open Trading Protocol - the first XML based eCommerce protocol that pre-dated all other XML eCommerce initiatives.

He is also an experienced consultant with over 20 years experience in managing and motivating teams in IT strategy, development, architecture and organization in industries including: finance, insurance, distribution, security regulation, utilities, oil, entertainment, accountancy, legal and healthcare.

He has also authored several articles and books on Web Services and XML technology.

David is a British citizen who holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science. He currently lives in the Bay Area.

David can be contacted on david@davidburdett.com. His weblog is at http://www.davidburdett.com.